august happened.

I'm months behind, but this one has been stuck in limbo for me.  I wasn't sure how August should turn out in this place, where I've taken lately to posting life highlights, so the photos have just been hanging out on my computer desktop until I had a nudge about what, if anything, I was going to write along with them.  It's a gorgeous October day today, and while laying down to help my oldest daughter slip off into her nap, the nudge came.

I wrote at the end of last month's highlight blog that big changes were afoot, and they were.  I was planning to finally put a studio in at the house, and we thought we were going to have another baby.  I scheduled a doctor appointment for what I guessed was around the 10 week marker after some travel, and we discovered that I'd miscarried about three weeks prior.  My body just hadn't gotten the memo yet.  My doctor was awesome and talked me through my options, and I was scheduled for a D&C the following morning... the day we were to start potty-training Magz, actually.  It all happened very fast, and was emotional, shocking, and okay.  We hadn't told many people we suspected we were pregnant, but we made those calls.  We made calls to parents and family, and we told some of our friends.  Like ripping off a band-aid, I had an intense desire to share our reality quickly as I was feeling it, to honor the living of it, and then let life carry us along into a new day.  In writing this I'm realizing afresh that there are heart-friends that I didn't call, and I'm honestly really sorry for that.  There just came an hour when I didn't really want to tell it again, and then time passes and it's easier not to.  It's not something I ever wanted facebook to know or anything... I think I just shared enough to emotionally and relationally keep moving through, because hey, life doesn't stop.

We're okay.  It was a shock to mentally undo the secret planning we'd done, but we allowed ourselves to feel all the feelings and we consider ourselves very blessed, really.  I had a very easy physical experience, all things considered, and experienced no complications.  My doctor says there's no reason we couldn't have more children, if we want to.  We weren't trying to get pregnant when this happened, and I generally feel led to trust God with whether or not we have more (which is Christian code for 'I'm not on birth control.').  The emotional impact of that choice is something I still struggle with, because while I'm not against having more children I realize it leaves me open to this happening again.  In this day, at my age, and in the body I have, it just seems the the way for me, and as long as mgb and I are on the same page I have peace about it.  I will say, I have a renewed compassion for people experiencing any number of things related to these issues, and have some pretty violent feelings about folks who tritely pontificate or hold/post hateful and misguided posters, memes and photos of aborted, dismembered babies, either in person or on the internet, in the name of being pro-life.  I had no experiential idea how emotional triggers really worked until I was sitting in a pedicure chair, sent out by my husband for a little weepy r&r, and was totally ambushed by a photo on facebook in the comments section of a pro-life meme that literally made me want to throw up, scream, and bawl my eyes out.  Posted by a well-intentioned person, I'm sure, who claims to love 'life'.  It's not honoring to a child to post their dead photos on the internet.  It triggers people who've had miscarriages and any number of things.  It triggers people with hearts that beat.  It doesn't shock people into valuing life, but it does make me want to find and hurt you, and take away your computer because you are a man, and while you have the right to love life all day long you will never be able to speak with the same voice as a woman about this topic.  Find a new way to value life that actually looks like loving people... might I suggest we all begin by using restraint when it comes to what we 'like' or 'share', that we not be the heavy fist thoughtlessly pummeling the hearts of those walking wounded.  

Ugh, writing that made me feel all of that anger again.  Seriously people, we've got to stop letting facebook be the litmus test of who we are.  On the other front, I ended up not moving on the home studio, because of these surprising health events, Magz starting pre-school, and adjusting to new schedules.  I still plan to do it at some point, and besides, it's entirely possible that I'm more productive using other studios right now while the girls are still little.   But anyway, that was some of real life in August.  I hope that the quiet story going on behind these photos makes them even more beautiful, because that's what they are to me.    

three-day recording trip in the metroplex!

we got a great suite nearby, near Grapevine Mills Mall:

cousins!

Grammy came with us, and was a vital and awesome player:

night-swimming with Mama:

we went to visit family in hico before coming back to h-town:

all set up and ready to potty-train!

doc mcstuffins undies at the ready, chosen by magz.  I hope this photo isn't weird.

this just makes me laugh.  Ru fell asleep in Magz' bed.  I somehow think this one will have an easy transition out of the crib one of these days.

bedtime.

naptime x2, plus laundry:

10 years of sobriety.

in the bathroom at the Polyphonic Spree show:

the awesome, awesome show:

a photo series shot by margaret ann bell, Dinner At Saltgrass:

the above photo makes me cackle, our table neighbors apparently didn't get the memo that there'd be a photographer at dinner.

daddy blowing up the princess pool: 

this one has been my phone wallpaper for awhile.

so there it was.  august.

in real life, it's nearing late-ish October, the weather is my favorite, the girls already have their Halloween outfits and I spent under $25, and I just got all my hair taken off.  this time of year feels liberating to me.

m.y.